The Line That Ties Me
by coldqueen
Summary: ...to things I don't understand. Also known as the time Clint made a different call.


**Title: **The Line That Ties Me

**Genre: **Movies

**Series: **The Avengers

**Characters: **Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow), Clint Barton (Hawkeye)

**Spoilers:** N/A

**Rating:** PG-13

**Summary:** ...to things I don't understand. Also known as the time he made a different call.

**Disclaimer: **Ain't mine.

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The wind that moved through the trees carried a chill with it that he always associated with Russia, where the cold was relentlessly aggressive, as if affronted by natural human warmth and desperate to banish it from the world. He'd been laying in his sniper's nest long enough that his legs had gone numb, but Clint was a man of infinite patience and didn't give in to the instinct to move. His fingers stuck to the black matte metal of his rifle where it rested in his hands, his gloves leaving the pads of his fingers open to the elements. The forest around him wasn't quiet, he could hear the animals moving in the dark and the wind tossing branches together, but he focused his hearing on the earpiece wrapped around his head and his eyesight on the small house that sat in the clearing below.

A family of four prepared for bed inside the house, the receivers that he'd placed in the forest around the house easily picking up the small noises they made and relaying them back to him. According to the information S.H.I.E.L.D. had received several hours ago, one of their most elusive targets would be infiltrating the house with a team to assassinate the father inside, a Russian customs officer who'd recently had the unfortunate honor of witnessing one of the Red Room's operations. The man hadn't provoked the secret organization in any way, hadn't told another soul of what he'd seen, but the Red Room left no witnesses. The fact that they were sending one of their top assassins to take care of the man was overkill, but it was a boon to S.H.I.E.L.D. The Black Widow was notoriously hard to pin down and this rare instance of knowing where she'd be ahead of time was the first opportunity they'd had of realistically eliminating the threat.

As if conjured by his thoughts, two large SUVs swept down the road, lights off, engines quietly humming with power and creeping to a stop just inside the tree line. Clint trained his scope on the shadowed figures now moving outside the vehicles and spotted his target almost immediately. Despite the lack of light, her red hair shined like a beacon in the night. Unlike the thickly swaddled soldiers at her side, she wore only her minimalist body suit, and he felt a smirk curl his lips because she was clearly cold. With sharp gestures she sent the men under her command towards the house, her mouth pursed as she studied the open area around the structure before moving to join them. She wasn't the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen, but there was something there in the way she moved, an innate grace that was almost feline; he easily see how some men might mistake the movement for sensuality rather than the barely contained violence that it was.

With a small press of a button he switched from the auditory feedback from his sensors over to the open line to his handler. 典he itsy bitsy spider has made an appearance."

"Hold your position, Hawkeye. Let the spider do her work."

"They're going to kill an innocent family, Coulson,he objected, his voice a husky murmur in the dark, his complaint obligatory. He'd read the mission parameters and understood why it was better for the enemy to complete their mission before he took them down. They would report a successful mission back to their own handlers, then go to radio silence for several days as they retreated from the mission site, splitting off and returning to headquarters one by one to avoid suspicion from civilian authorities. It would be days before anyone would realize they'd eliminated the Black Widow, a weakness in the Red Room's security that S.H.I.E.L.D would exploit for as long as they could.

"Hawk-"

"I don't have to be happy about it,Clint stated, switching off the line before Coulson could chastise him again. It wasn't the first time he'd had to watch civilians die because he'd been ordered to do so. It wouldn't be the last time, either, and it never became easier. Understanding of having to put the big picture before the small lives that got in the way of it didn't mean that each death didn't weigh on him still, the blood covered his hands as surely as if he'd taken their lives himself.

It only took two well-placed boot kicks for the front door to unlatch and swing inward and the three man team stormed in, guns at the ready. The Widow remained outside, her gun still holstered, her body seemingly relaxed as she leaned against the broken door frame and did as he did; she waited and listened.

It was easy to imagine the team's progress as they moved through the house, their steel-toed boots made solid thunks as they went up the stairs. Clint's audio devices weren't sophisticated enough to make out the sound of the bullets sliding into the chamber but it was a sound he was intimately familiar with and could easily bring to mind. The first shot was sudden but he didn't jump and neither did she. The body that hit the second story floor was heavy, most likely their target's plump wife. The second shot came seconds later and no falling body sounded that time. They had caught one of the family still in bed, completely without defense against the assault. Clint hadn't had time to infiltrate the house so he couldn't hypothesize whose bedroom would have been at the top of the stairs.

The target had two daughters, one grown and one barely out of toddling years, and unfortunately for the elder daughter she'd chosen tonight to come home from university for a visit. The team wouldn't spare them, he knew. If they were lucky they'd be granted quick deaths.

A male scream echoed out of the house and reached Clint even without the earpiece. Two shots reverberated through the dark and the scream stopped as suddenly as it started. His hand was clenched around the rifle, and he moved his stiff fingers restlessly as he adjusted and took aim. The Black Widow seemed almost like she was carved from stone, she stood so still in the shadows of the wooden porch. He adjusted the scope so that he could see her face and watched as her eyes flickered towards the forest, intensely studying the shadows there. Her dossier said she was uncannily good at figuring out when she was being watched and he could see that knowledge in her face in that moment. She could tell someone was in the forest and that set her more on edge than the quadruple murder taking place inside the house.

One of the soldiers thundered down the stairs, stopping jerkily just inside the door. He spoke quickly but Clint knew enough Russian to easily translate. 鼎an't find the youngest girl. Jernovich took a shot at her and missed. What do you want to do?"

"Go get the propellant from the truck. Prepare to burn the house,the Widow instructed, pulling her gun from her holster and thumbing the safety off as she moved around him and into the house.

"Piotr says we should take her alive. The Red Room is always looking for recruits,the soldier suggested, blanching at the look the Widow shot him as she paused beside him. 的'll got get the gas now."

One by one the anonymous soldiers came out of the house until only the Widow remained inside. He couldn't hear her over the splashing sound of the soldiers dousing the outside of the home with gasoline, but again he could easily imagine the way she'd prowl through the house, her aim steady and her eyes sharp. The gun would be aimed low, her prey couldn't be taller than two feet. Unlike her compatriots she wouldn't be so easily eluded by a child.

"I know you're scared,the Widow said and through an upstairs window Clint could see her silhouette. His hands tightened on the rifle as she knelt slowly, clearly having cornered the child. 典hat's the body's natural response to danger, it releases chemicals that cause an emotional response. I want you to breathe slowly and calm yourself, so that you can listen to me. There is a limited amount of options for you right now. I can kill you. You won't have to grieve your parents or your sister, you'd join them wherever it is they taught you to believe they'd go in death. You can be recruited, become like me, a widow for the Red Room. That chemical response you're experiencing? The shaking in your limbs, the knot in your stomach, the dizziness in your head? You'll never feel it again. You won't feel much of anything anymore."

There was a soft murmur, too quiet for Clint's receptors to pick up. The little girl wasn't the only one trembling, though the vibration that ran from his head to his toes was from adrenaline and rage rather than the fear that she must be feeling. Missions like this always pushed him to the edge; that place where he walked away from the line of work to which he'd dedicated his life and tried to find some semblance of peace. A place where he didn't watch women and children be murdered in cold blood, a place where the bad guys were dealt with by the justice system and he wasn't forced to be judge, jury, and executioner. A place where he didn't feel horrified by the fact that sometimes he didn't hate this job at all, sometimes he enjoyed the thrill of the hunt and the knowledge that he alone was responsible for the destruction and death he left behind him.

The sharp crack of the gun shot jolted him in a way that the others hadn't and when his eye refocused through the scope he watched the Widow remove the blanket from the bed and drape it over the huddled figure against the bedroom wall. His resolve strengthened then and Coulson's words from the mission briefing echoed in his ears as he trained his gun on the front door and waited for the Widow to exit the house. He hadn't understood then what the older agent had meant when he'd called her the ultimate weapon. He knew now; she was a creature without conscience, crafted by the Red Room to be capable of anything and able to do it without hesitation.

She'd returned her gun to the holster by the time she walked out the front door, and Clint's finger on the trigger tensed as he lined up his shot. She pulled a book of matches from her pocket and used them to start the house burning, watching the flames shoot up the wooden siding before turning back to her team. 添ou can go. Leave me the second truck."

"What about you?One of them asked, his trepidation of the woman clear in his body language. They were all frightened of her, Clint could tell. It was in the way they wrapped their hands around the butt of their rifles so tightly, how their eyes flicked to her and away as if just looking at her would set off the restrained violence that lurked under the pretty face.

"Go,was her only reply but there was enough steel behind her tone that the men immediately obeyed. The Widow opened her cell phone as she watched the three men walk away, hitting a speed dial and putting it to her ear. 展e're done here. All that's left is to sweep up the listened intently for several minutes before she spoke again. 的 understand. I'll report back in 72 hours."

She replaced the cell in her pocket and turned back to watch the flames slowly consume the house.

He steadied the rifle on the frozen dirt, pressing down slightly on the barrel to ground the two-pronged stand.

She stepped carefully onto the small porch, swaying out of the way of the falling embers and stood just outside the front door again, her expression as cold and remote as he'd ever seen it.

He plotted his shot, using the sway of the trees to calculate the speed and direction of the wind, hypothesizing that her suit held Kevlar and he'd need to aim for the small vee of skin exposed by the zipper that ran up the center of her chest.

The Widow knelt and pulled a small dagger from her boot, then handed it to the little girl wrapped forlornly in a smoke smudged blanket. 添ou'll need that."

Clint's instinct to pull the trigger transformed instantly into bone deep confusion.

"I put my shoes on like you told me,her small voice said, barely audible over the sizzle and pop of the fire around them. 溺ama says I'm not supposed to touch knives."

"Mama is dead. Take it,the Widow instructed, waiting until a small hand had wrapped around the blade before guiding the child off the porch and away from the house.

Clint eased his finger off the trigger and tried to incorporate this new variable into his mission parameters.

"Where are we going?"

"Your mother has a childhood friend in Norway that she hasn't spoken with in twenty years. We're going to take a train to see her."

"And then?"

"And then you will get a new name and a new life."

"What about you?"

"I will return to the Red Room,the Widow explained solemnly, opening the door to the SUV and buckling the child onto the back seat.

"Can I go with you?"

"The Red Room is not a good place for children."

"You said I could go if I wanted."

"I lied. You will be silent from now on. Talk to no one, look at no one, and forget everything you once knew. If anyone tries to speak or talk to you, you take that blade and you put it in their throats. Then you run. You keep running until you can't run anymore. As you run, you forget your name, your home, your family. You forget you ever saw my face and everything that happened here tonight. Can you do that?"

It was hard to see in the dark cabin of the truck but Clint detected the slight movement of the girl's small nod. The Black Widow shut the door and rounded the front of the truck, slipping behind the driver's wheel and putting the vehicle in drive within seconds. If he didn't hurry back to his own vehicle on one of the small side roads a mile away he'd risk losing his target. If he lost track of her completely, S.H.I.E.L.D. wouldn't have another opportunity like this for years.

The intelligence S.H.I.E.L.D. was operating on was incorrect. Coulson had said that the Black Widow was a sociopath, willing to kill anyone for the right price or on the Red Room's order. Not only had she not killed the child, she was deliberately preventing others from murdering the child as well. That indicated that there was more going on in her Soviet-programmed brain than her masters and their enemy intelligence agencies knew. Before he could conscientiously kill her for being a soulless killing machine, he wanted to have his own confirmation that she was in fact beyond redemption.

Colonel Fury and Agent Coulson thought she was.

Clint had heard the way she spoke with the girl, though, seen her gently wrap too small fingers around the handle of the blade; he wasn't sure of anything about her anymore.

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Review, please.


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